Yes, it is. They stated that no account will be deleted, only adult contents will be oscured and and made private. But it’s not what is happening.
Tumblr is shadowbanning all visual artists, no matter if they have NSFW or SFW material on their blogs. And this is mainly damaging the visual artists in the fandoms. The proof? Until some time ago, typing “Johnlock” in the dashboard search bar, I had among the popular results, tons of fanarts from the most famous artists. The fanarts were the most immediate and numerous result of the research, I’m sure you remember this. Now it has completely changed. These are the search results on “Johnlock” search from today. There are almost exclusively text posts, chats, and memes. Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against memes or text posts, they are great. The problem is that fanarts, manips, photosets, gifset, and even most of the actors’ photos have disappeared from the research.
Is it strange? Not a result from Anotherwellkeptsecret, Reapersun, Bluebellofbakerstreet? How is it possible? Because Tumblr doesn’t want fandom material on its site anymore, and it doesn’t give a toss if it’s SFW or not. You’re a fandom artist? You are punished by becoming invisible. So much for “SFW content is still allowed,” right? :))) No, in reality it is not. How are users supposed to find new artists to follow, if they’re shadowbanned? How are arists supposed to make themselves known and show their creations, if they can’t be seen? I surely don’t have to remind you that many artists use commissions to pay bills and as a help to live. If they are no longer visible, they will lose commissioners, and even if they don’t do commissions, this attitude of Tumblr will discourage them from creating new art, since they will be invisible. There will be less new contents, less ficlets written under fanarts (if I don’t see the fanart, I can’t write a ficlet inspired by it). We are all losing, due to the new Tumblr policy.
All of this adds up to other forms of boycott that Tumblr is using: - internal research that no longer works: you can no longer explore the tags in a blog, because you do not see any results; - some users don’t appear in the list of the notes to a post, even if they added something; - for many users, their most popular posts are no longer visible under their username and blog title;
Tumblr doesn’t even allow anymore a visual preview of its own links, inside and outside Tumblr:
Besides, there are the old problems this site always had, never solved and now even more serious. The @ function doesn’t work anymore for many of us, and many peole don’t receive notifications from other users who have addressed them specifically. Seeing what the situation is like, I don’t think they have the will to fix any of these errors.
Ultimately, we can also decide to remain here, but it’s clear that the site no longer wants us here, and it’s doing all it can to crush us and make us invisible.
But what can we do to fight back? Not much, I’m afraid. The only thig I can think about, is:
Follow and reblog
FOLLOW AND REBLOG
FOLLOW AND REBLOG
FOLLOW AND REBLOG
FOLLOW AND REBLOG
Make sure you follow all your fave artists before December, 17th, so you can keep track of them, and you can visit their blog directly, if you don’t see them in the search or in the dashboard. And reblog their art, EVER. It could be the only way to save them from the oblivion. Lurkers, readers, writers can be safe, for now, but our artist comrades are under attack. This is the time to show that a fandom is truly a community, giving them all the support we can.
As a form of protest, and since I believe that Tumblr will try to shadowban this post, I have decided that I will punish it every day. Deal with it, @staff :)
“Not safe for work content will be taken off starting Dec 17″
“Also Safe for work content will be removed”
If Tumblr is so desperate to kill itself just shut down the servers
Well, this is worrying.
It’s not surprising but seeing more people getting hit with a shadowban makes me wonder where Tumblr is eventually heading towards. It’s like looking at a person very slowly walk towards a cliff, and no matter how much you yell at them, they just keep walking.
Still, let’s see where this is going.
And thus tumblr became a barren wasteland
im gonna warn some artists i know just in case. if you were tagged and you did not wish to be, sorry. (>w<“ ) i just want to make sure people are aware just in case, cause i sure as heck would like to know of something like this..
they’ve hidden my blog and all my top posts that showed up in my tag
Oh. This explains a lot.
Tried to send a post to a friend yesterday because I’m not posting since the ban was announced. But she didn’t appear when I searched for her. She was gone completely.
Her account is a totally ordinary mixed fandom and meme type blog. But now I can’t even talk to her.
The plan for the 17th, when the adult content ban comes in, is to protest.
To do that, we are making as much noise either side of the 17th as possible, and using the site as normal.
On the 17th, dead silence.
People are saying log off but what they really mean is don’t open the site or the app.
But, on the 17th make as much noise as possible on every other platform. Tweet about it and post on facebook and instagram and everywhere else.
What this does is causes a massive dip in ad revenue for one single day. That does not make staff think ‘oh everyone’s gone let’s shut down.’ What it actually makes them think is ‘oh shit people aren’t happy and if people don’t keep using our site we’re out of money and out of jobs.’
A boycott reminds a company that the users (consumers) have the power to make their site (business) worthless with one single coordinated decision.
If you want to join in, here’s what to do:
Do:
Close all open instances of the app and site on all your devices before the 17th
Make posts before and after the 17th on tumblr and other platforms, talking about why this ban is bad
Make posts on other sites during the 17th. Flood the official tumblr staff twitter and facebook with your anger and your opinion
Come back on the 18th and check in
Don’t:
Delete the app from your phone (this doesn’t affect their revenue and since it’s off the store at the moment it’ll be hard to get back)
Delete your account. I mean you can if you want to, but if you keep your account and don’t use it you’re saying to staff that there’s still time to save it. If you delete it’s hard work to come back.
Open the app or website (including specific blogs)
Make any posts (turn down/off your queue and make sure nothing is scheduled)
Go quiet elsewhere. Make it clear that this is just about tumblr, not a mass move away from all social media.
Remember: the execs don’t care about anything but money. Shutting down the site means there’s $0 further income from it. That’s their last possible course of action. If we make it clear we’re not happy, they’ll have to do something or we can do more and more until it becomes too expensive.
Protests take commitment. They’re a defiant action against a business that is doing something wrong. They will try to scare you into not participating, because they’re scared. We hold all the power here, sometimes the execs just need to be reminded of that.
Recently, Tumblr was removed from the Apple app store due to an incident involving child pornography. This incident is incredibly unfortunate, but it doesn’t stand alone. Tumblr was also removed from the app store due to the large influx of porn bots and pornographic spam, users claiming to be proud to be pedophiles, blatant Nazism, racists who are not deleted for sending hate and harassing users, and more. I myself reported someone for harassing me, but because I had blocked the person and couldn’t access the messages where they harassed me, they were still able to send me anonymous asks. Your support staff, with back doors to the website (presumably), claimed they could not access the messages, and I was left SOL. Many features on this website do nothing to actually protect your users from harassment, racism, homophobia, transphobia, Nazis, pedophiles, predators, porn bots, and more.
You claim in your statement to us that you “have been working on these problems for a long time”. This is blatantly untrue. Please do not lie to us and patronize us. We’ve been here. We’ve seen you do nothing over, and over, and over again.
We complained to you for months and months about the rampant porn bots, and you did nothing except add a report button on mobile which only reported sensitive content or spam at best. You could have addressed this problem with an effective algorithm, but you did not. We complained to you about being harassed and sent hate speech for being LGBT+, and you did nothing. We complained to you about blogs being randomly deleted, and sometimes you’ve restored them, other times you have not. We complained to you that there were people proudly claiming to be “Minor Attracted Persons”, or pedophiles, and you did nothing. We complained to you about people proudly claiming to be white supremacists, and you did nothing. All of these things are “against the community guidelines”, and yet over and over, you have not found effective ways to handle these problems or suppress the feeling of welcome that these users claim to get here. You have had a long time to work on these problems, but you haven’t addressed them. To say you have is untrue.
Multiple other social networking websites, such as Wordpress, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and others have effectively dealt with rampant pornography, racism, pedophilia, and other problems without causing massive issues for their users who are not misusing the platform. They are continuing to find new, effective ways to deal with these issues without causing problems for their userbase as a whole. There is no reason that you are unable to do this effectively other than that you wanted to do it quickly. You have once again chosen your stock holders over your users. And we have had enough.
You have already started to ban “Adult” content with a new algorithm. Here are screenshots of just a fraction of the posts you have flagged as containing adult content:
Your new system of simply tackling everything at once is not working. At all. And each of these screenshots is proof of your utter incompetence. None of these posts contain pornographic acts, “female nipples”, or any community violation of any kind.
We, the users, have been asking you for months to deal with these problems - particularly, the porn bots and bots that spam. In order to block a bot from a side blog, I have to do it manually, even though they are in my side blog’s feed. This is a huge issue for mobile - only users. They keep cropping up in droves, taking over our posts and tricking google into making it look like a legitimate blog linked to a pornographic website. We have complained to you for months and months now, and your solution to simply “ban all adult content” is ineffective. I agree that children should not be able to access pornography - but this is not how you tackle a porn bot problem. Your system is utterly useless, allows for racists, pedophiles, porn bots, and Nazis to remain untouched. It also harms sex workers and real people who may use this website for some forms of adult content responsibly. Moreover, as seen above, it harms plenty of users who have in no way violated your terms of service.
If you keep this up, you threaten your website and company as a whole. Many of us are backing up our blogs and planning places to go to.
You already have a content filter for “sensitive” content (content inappropriate for younger viewers). You could have improved this, instead of attacking your entire user base. It seems to be a very lazy “solution”, if you could call it one at all, and one that harms your entire userbase.
If you are going to keep this filter in place and make Tumblr, a website that has never been known for being family friendly and has never claimed to be, you are going to lose millions of your users. We are already planning our exodus. It isn’t hard to follow. Censor us, and we will go somewhere else. That is not a threat. It is a promise.
But I know some of the people who follow me have followed me for a long time. I’m a basic blog. A shitpost blog which fluctuates between fandoms and shouts about politics and sometimes dogs and tries so hard to always, always be supportive. Positive.
I’m probably going, and I don’t have a serious plan for the future.
I am a small blog. But if you’ll miss me enough to want it, PM me and I’ll tell you my name. Anybody who doesn’t want to lose me is more than welcome to just stay in touch on Facebook for now.
I’m not a major player. I never was. But there are people I’m going to miss, and I’d be remiss to assume that could never be a two-way thing.
Signed gladly. It’s not too late to try and salvage this bloody shambles.
I don’t think this is the kind of decision that will be reversed, but the rate of signing is magnificent. Let this make a smell under the nose of the shareholders at the very worst. Sign and share, despite your misgivings.
